little celebration could hardly be wished. We had no lack of good singers amongst us, and we offered our guest a feast of Scottish song which he acknowledged was a real treat to him. He himself read the speech of John Ball at the marketplace from his own 'Dream of John Ball,' which was then appearing in weekly instalments in the Commonweal. He read, or rather chanted, that wonderful apologue in a rich, solemn strain, as one whose own heart and soul were in every word, and such was the effect of the recital that we all felt as though it were John Ball himself who was speaking to us and we were the yeomen assembled round him and were being consecrated with him to the Cause 'even unto life or death.' None of those present that evening would ever forget how strangely and deeply we were moved by that reading.
Our gathering, though only consisting of a few dozen members and friends of the branch, was noteworthily international in voice as in sentiment. Leo Melliet, a French refugee well known in scholastic circles, who had been Mayor and Minister of Justice in the Paris Commune, and was one of our earliest supporters in Glasgow, sang the 'Carmagnole' with such dramatic effect that we were roused to our feet and danced the chorus with him round the room. A German comrade, one of a small group of German glass-blowers who were members of the branch, sang a German workers' song, and a Russian Jew, a cigarmaker, sang a Yiddish revolutionary song which to our ears sounded as a weird sort of dirge. Between the songs we had several short speeches, including one from Morris, all pitched on an elated note, rejoicing in the hopes of the new civilisation which we were, we believed, bringing into birth.
Questions were put to Morris from all parts of the room which drew from him many characteristic sayings and stories. Towards the end of the evening Mrs. Neilson, a member of the Ruskin Society and our first woman recruit, surprised us with a little preceptorial address, in which she
